


A Drink First

by samchandler1986



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Twice Upon A Time additional scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 16:44:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13171017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samchandler1986/pseuds/samchandler1986
Summary: Happy ever after isn't forever. It's just a little time.





	A Drink First

He opens his eyes, a terrible whistling in his ears. That’s a new one, he thinks, bringing his hands in front of his face to take a look at what this regeneration has wrought—

They’re the same as he remembers. Long fingered. Good for pointing at people when he’s being cross and shouty. One of few things he really _liked_ about this body.

He presses them to his ears, but the ringing is inside his own head. “What am I?” he says, over the din.

“What d’you think?”

She’s standing at the console, flicking switches and not really looking at him. Just like she used to. The memories are stab-him-in-the-hearts fresh—

_“Where are you going to take me?”_

_“Anywhere_ you _like_ _—_

He blinks the past away, standing up from the floor. “Am I a memory?”

“Maybe.” Her _try harder_ tone of voice, straight from the classroom.

“Or am I…?”

She looks at him at last, lit in orange by the time rotor. “Are you… what?” 

“A ghost.”

“Didn’t think you believed in them.”

He touches a hand to his collar. Feels the thin chest of this dying body, tracing ribs under his fingertips. “I don’t, as a rule.”

“Then why start now?”

“Oh, what else should we call someone,” he asks, “trapped in the space between one heartbeat and the next?”

A flicker of a smile. “Got there in the end, eh?”

“You know me. I tend to take my time.”

“Mmm.”

He watches her for a moment, under beetling brows. “So, this Testimony... Was it your idea?”

She laughs. “No. Why would you think that?”

“Well, all this… freezing time and recapturing memories…”

“What about it?”

“It’s a bit… relevant. Isn’t it?”

“To anyone who has ever lost someone, yes.”

“Ah.”

There’s room for a moment of pity, apparently. “I’m just… borrowing their technology,” she explains. “I’ll put it back when I’m done.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“Are you trying not to laugh?”

“Maybe.” Their circling of the console has bought them together, either side of the handle that will send the TARDIS into the vortex. His fingers twitch but he resists the urge. “Why are you here?”

“I’ve got an appointment. I think you remember it now.”

As if it happened yesterday. Bill’s gift freights sorrow with joy. “Trap Street.”

“Yep.” She says it lightly, popping the p. “Could do with a bit of company on the way back…”

Her finger brushes his. He remembers that too – her hand curling around his, bringing him back from the brink countless times. Past the point of terror, of reason, or rage...

“Clara Oswald,” he says, smiling in spite of the tears he won't let fall in his eyes. It feels good, her name on his tongue again after all this time; the sound of her in his ears. He knits their fingers together. “It would be my honour.”

“Good,” she manages. Her own eyes are swimming as she looks up at him, grinning back. “… Unless?”

Magnificent eyebrows quirk. “Unless… _what_?”

She licks her lips, seeming nervous for the first time. “Unless… you have time for a quick drink first?”

A breath. “I suppose... there _is_ a lot we have to catch up on..."

“Mm. Could take a while.”

He nods. “A drink first,” he agrees. 

They pull the lever, together. Send the TARDIS spinning into time and space; to Trap Street and to regeneration. To their ending. Points of inevitability, unmissable.

…But they take their time about it, of course.


End file.
